Mac, iPhone, and iPad user Rush Limbaugh today discussed Apple Inc., the company’s secrecy, and the Mac Pro, among other things, on his radio program that, since its inception on August 1, 1988, is the highest-rated talk radio show in the United States. The 3-hour Rush Limbaugh Show airs daily on a network of approximately 590 AM and FM affiliate stations. The program is also broadcast worldwide on the U.S. Armed Forces Radio Network. A November 2008 poll by Zogby International found that Rush Limbaugh was the most trusted news personality in the nation.

From the live transcript, Limbaugh said in part:

A couple things here about Apple, Inc. One of them personal. Yesterday was a big day. I have been waiting and hoping (without knowing) for an upgrade to my chosen computer that they sell. It’s called a Mac Pro. It is their fastest, most-powerful computer. I have two of them: One here, one at home. I used to have four of ’em, back when I had New York apartment and a New York studio. But I’m down to two of them. They have not been modernized in two years. The last refresh was June of 2010.

In those two years, massive improvements in data-transfer technology have been invented, created. One of them is called Thunderbolt. It’s a data transfer protocol that is much faster than USB, much faster than FireWire. Every Apple computer in the last year has it. The top-of-the-line Apple computer never has had it. I have been waiting. There has been no word. In fact, there were rumors that Apple is going to discontinue my computer. It’s not their biggest seller. It is their most expensive.

It’s used by video professionals and graphics professionals who need a lot of processing power. I don’t need all the power it has, but I want it. So, I had it. I have a lot of data. I have a lot of video files. I have a lot of audio files. And even though the Mac Pro comes with eight terabytes of built-in storage, I only have two of those terabytes actually available for storage because the other six I use for backup. I have two different backups. One is their Time Machine backup, and I’ve unified two of the four hard drives into one four-terabyte drive.

It has four two-terabyte drives in it. The other two-terabyte drive I use for the other backup. So I’ve got two terabytes, and it’s on the verge of always being filled. So what I wanted to do was get an external RAID array, and I have them. I’ve had ’em in there for two years waiting. It’s called Promise’s Pegasus. There any numbers you can get, but you can get ’em from anywhere from four terabytes up to 12 terabytes that connect via Thunderbolt, and they become external storage for whatever you want to use it for.

I was gonna use it for storing all of the audio and video because I’m always up to the edge on my two-terabyte hard drive. I know it sounds weird to have eight terabytes in the machine and use only two, but backup is crucial. Power failures where I live — power surges, glitches — happen. The data is too important. I’m backed up everywhere, as insurance. So there’s a way around it. But there was no Thunderbolt, and I didn’t want to connect via FireWire or USB because it takes ages to transfer data.

So I’ve been waiting … and I’ve been waiting. And in these two years, word leaked out that maybe they were gonna discontinue the computer, but they never said anything. A bunch of Mac Pro users actually started a Facebook petition simply asking Apple just to tell them: “Are you gonna modernize it or you gonna get rid of it? Our business depends on it. To hell with your secrecy! It’s not like you have any competitors here that you gotta keep this secret. Just tell us!”

And they wouldn’t.

They had as many as, I think, 16,000 or 17,000 signatories to this Facebook petition. So yesterday was the Worldwide Developer Conference, and there were rumors leading up to it claiming that there would be a refresh. And everybody was singing “Hallelujah!” and “Hunkadora!” and everything. Then the Worldwide Developer Conference happens, and they don’t say a thing about it. So we all go to the Apple Store after the keynote address is over and we find, “Whoa, looky here! They’ve upgraded! All right! They’ve upgraded the Mac Pro.”

And I started look at the specs. And they’re not even using the brand-new, latest-available chips that came out in March! The upgrade is insignificant. There is no Thunderbolt in their top-of-the-line machine. And I was ready to come here today and say, “Steve Jobs would have never permitted this. What in the world are they thinking?” Your top-of-the-line computer, if you’re not gonna get rid of it, why not…? I mean, Thunderbolt’s been out a year. Why can’t you include it? Anyway, I was going through all this, and I’m fit to be tied ’cause I’ve been waiting to expand.

There are other options. I could go iMac. It’s not as fast. It does have all the internal storage, but it would work fine. I could connect my external drive to it and solve my problem, but I’ve been waiting. So last night on an Apple blog I discover that David Pogue, who is the tech blogger and writer at the New York Times, posts a little piece that says an Apple executive told him that the Mac Pro and the iMac are both being redesigned and face major upgrades. But not until next year. I said, “Ah, well, here we are back to where I started two years ago: Waiting.”

But Apple hasn’t officially said this.

It’s just some nameless exec talking to the New York Times, and we know how that can go. It’s the New York Times. So now I don’t know what to do. I’m sitting here with a two-year-old computer, which is unacceptable. The upgrade is not worth it. It doesn’t make any sense to do it. (interruption) What I have now is 12-Core. The speed bump is not that big. It’s not. Without the Thunderbolt, without USB 3, without some of the other little things that other Macs have. The MacBook Airs, these things that cost 900 bucks have Thunderbolt!

I don’t understand it. I don’t understand the marketing. I don’t. I know they may be redesigning it. They’ve got their explanations, but they never tell anybody. So I’m sitting here not knowing what to do. And I don’t want to wait a year! But here’s something I know: If I go ahead and do something as a substitute (get another Mac), and they do upgrade it a year from now, I’m gonna sit there and say, “Why didn’t I wait?” And I’ll get it anyway and I’ll find some homeless guy to give my system to. Like Snerdley.

(sigh)

Well, look, I could spend all day talking about this. The 15-inch Mac Pro, apparently it’s to die for. It’s just great. There’s nothing like it. Apparently it’s gonna wipe out all the other competition. That’s fine. That computer’s gonna cost close to four grand if you max it out. A 15-inch laptop is gonna cost four grand if you load the thing up. So I don’t know how many of them they’re actually gonna sell at the maxed-out configuration. So, anyway, I’m sitting here and I have no clue what to do.

And Apple will never tell you what they’re gonna do with this, even though they don’t have to guard this one with secrecy. There aren’t any competitors at the Mac Pro line that they gotta keep secrets from, but still… So I’m sitting here frustrated as I can be. I really want Thunderbolt! (laughing) For those of you… I know you think I’m nuts, and they offer it on every computer. But they don’t offer it on a computer that is wicked fast and can handle all that I put a computer through. The computer is my life. It’s my primary form of communication.

Now, let me give you another analogy here, folks. Here I am, El Rushbo of the EIB Network. I have money that I am willing to put into play. I want to put my money in play. I don’t care what Apple’s gonna charge for this new computer; I just want it. But I don’t know if they’re even going to make the thing. As such I don’t know that I’m gonna spend another penny with Apple until I do find out whether or not they’re gonna do it, and they may not tell me. I don’t know. I got money sitting around here. It’s on the sideline. In a way, my little, quote, unquote, problem is a microcosm for what’s going on throughout the American economy, as small business and other business sit around and wait until they find out what’s gonna happen with taxes and health care and Obama and the presidential election.

I don’t think it’s a stretch. I’m sitting on money I am willing to spend, that I want to spend, but there’s uncertainty out there. I don’t know if it’s gonna make sense for me to spend it on something I’m really not crazy about getting instead of waiting for what might be coming. I don’t know. In fact, I’m a little bit afraid to spend something on what I don’t really want because what if they do make what I want available? The same thing is happening throughout our economy. Businesses large and small are sitting on growth. They are standing by. They are idle because they don’t know whether Obama’s gonna be reelected, and then they don’t know what their taxes are gonna be. They don’t know what the punitive costs of hiring people are gonna be. They don’t know what their health care requirements are gonna be. They don’t know. So they’re sitting around, and they have no clue how to spend their money yet.

And I, El Rushbo, am in the same situation. I’m sitting on money. I’m willing to spend it. I have it. I want to spend it. But not on something that I don’t want.

Apparently you didn’t finish the article. I know, it’s expecting too much for a Liberal to educate themselves by reading more than a title. Maybe John Stewart will give you a hilarious 5 second punch line tonight by which you can base your entire political philosophy.

you are the troll here. If Limbaugh takes 3 hours to express with overblown exasperation what it takes Jon Stewart to do in 5 seconds, then that’s his problem. Neither should be dictating Apple product development. Your choice to personally attack another poster who correctly stated that entertainers have no bearing on Apple is poor form. Get a life.

@ “Change his Party Affiliation”: Stewart and Limbaugh are both entertainers. If you are attracted by the “spectacle” that Limbaugh offers, that’s your choice. It doesn’t make Limbaugh any more correct than Stewart’s parody & farce. Far from it, as nonpartisan fact-checking uncovers Limbaugh’s tenuous relationship with complex issues as he presents serious-sounding stuff out of context and leaves out complicating details galore. For the simpleton, perhaps Limbaugh’s exasperated blowhard egomaniac delivery sounds like that of an educated man simplifying the complicated world and revealing great injustices. But no, he’s just another media whore shocking people for more advertising dollars. Limbaugh has no technical or fiscal education, he doesn’t have a college degree — he’s been a shock jock DJ his entire life. Even if you don’t like him, Jon Stewart [Liebowitz] graduated from William & Mary with a degree in psychology, which he uses very effectively, and has worked real jobs before switching to his current partisan hackery gig.

The fact that you choose incendiary language to describe another human being is indicative of your pathetic narrow-mindedness and lack of respect. This is primarily what’s wrong with the world, not anything that Limbaugh tells you.

There is no difference between Democrats and Republicans except the corporations that fund them and use their money-laundering services. Neither group is fiscally responsible nor effective collaborators seeking the best possible outcome for the nation as a whole. Two sides of the same tarnished coin. Look elsewhere for real solutions to real problems.

Years from now, historians may regard the 2008 election of Barack Obama as an inscrutable and disturbing phenomenon, a baffling breed of mass hysteria akin perhaps to the witch craze of the Middle Ages. How, they will wonder, did a man so devoid of professional accomplishment beguile so many into thinking he could manage the world’s largest economy, direct the world’s most powerful military, execute the world’s most consequential job?

Imagine a future historian examining Obama’s pre-presidential life: ushered into and through the Ivy League despite unremarkable grades and test scores along the way; a cushy non-job as a “community organizer”; a brief career as a state legislator devoid of legislative achievement (and in fact nearly devoid of his attention, so often did he vote “present”); and finally an unaccomplished single term in United States Senate, the entirety of which was devoted to his presidential ambitions. He left no academic legacy in academia, authored no signature legislation as legislator.

And then there is the matter of his troubling associations: the white-hating, America-loathing preacher who for decades served as Obama’s “spiritual mentor”; a real-life, actual terrorist who served as Obama’s colleague and political sponsor. It is easy to imagine a future historian looking at it all and asking: how on Earth was such a man elected president?

Not content to wait for history, the incomparable Norman Podhoretz addressed the question recently in the Wall Street Journal: To be sure, no white candidate who had close associations with an outspoken hater of America like Jeremiah Wright and an unrepentant terrorist like Bill Ayers would have lasted a single day. But because Mr. Obama was black, and therefore entitled in the eyes of liberaldom to have hung out with protesters against various American injustices, even if they were a bit extreme, he was given a pass.

Let that sink in: Obama was given a pass — held to a lower standard — because of the color of his skin. Podhoretz continues: And in any case, what did such ancient history matter when he was also articulate and elegant and (as he himself had said) “non-threatening,” all of which gave him a fighting chance to become the first black president and thereby to lay the curse of racism to rest?

Podhoretz puts his finger, I think, on the animating pulse of the Obama phenomenon — affirmative action. Not in the legal sense, of course. But certainly in the motivating sentiment behind all affirmative action laws and regulations, which are designed primarily to make white people, and especially white liberals, feel good about themselves.

Unfortunately, minorities often suffer so that whites can pat themselves on the back. Liberals routinely admit minorities to schools for which they are not qualified, yet take no responsibility for the inevitable poor performance and high drop-out rates which follow. Liberals don’t care if these minority students fail; liberals aren’t around to witness the emotional devastation and deflated self esteem resulting from the racist policy that is affirmative action. Yes, racist. Holding someone to a separate standard merely because of the color of his skin — that’s affirmative action in a nutshell, and if that isn’t racism, then nothing is. And that is what America did to Obama.

True, Obama himself was never troubled by his lack of achievements, but why would he be? As many have noted, Obama was told he was good enough for Columbia despite undistinguished grades at Occidental; he was told he was good enough for the US Senate despite a mediocre record in Illinois; he was told he was good enough to be president despite no record at all in the Senate. All his life, every step of the way, Obama was told he was good enough for the next step, in spite of ample evidence to the contrary. What could this breed if not the sort of empty narcissism on display every time Obama speaks?

In 2008, many who agreed that he lacked executive qualifications nonetheless raved about Obama’s oratory skills, intellect, and cool character. Those people — conservatives included — ought now to be deeply embarrassed. The man thinks and speaks in the hoariest of clichés, and that’s when he has his teleprompter in front of him; when the prompter is absent he can barely think or speak at all. Not one original idea has ever issued from his mouth — it’s all warmed-over Marxism of the kind that has failed over and over again for 100 years.

And what about his character? Obama is constantly blaming anything and everything else for his troubles. Bush did it; it was bad luck; I inherited this mess. It is embarrassing to see a president so willing to advertise his own powerlessness, so comfortable with his own incompetence. But really, what were we to expect? The man has never been responsible for anything, so how do we expect him to act responsibly?

In short: our president is a small and small-minded man, with neither the temperament nor the intellect to handle his job. When you understand that, and only when you understand that, will the current erosion of liberty and prosperity make sense. It could not have gone otherwise with such a man in the Oval Office.

But hey, at least we got to feel good about ourselves for a little while. And really, isn’t that all that matters these days?

Years from now, historians may regard the 2001 election of George Walker Bush as an inscrutable and disturbing phenomenon, a baffling breed of mass hysteria akin perhaps to the witch craze of the Middle Ages. How, they will wonder, did a man so devoid of professional accomplishment beguile so many into thinking he could manage the world’s largest economy, direct the world’s most powerful military, execute the world’s most consequential job?

“… affirmative action laws and regulations, which are designed primarily to make white people, and especially white liberals, feel good about themselves.”

Well, it sure beats Jim Crow laws, discrimination, lynching and slavery — you know, the things that make conservatives feel good about *themselves*.

Oh, I made some edits to your rant that you might appreciate:

True, [Bush] himself was never troubled by his lack of achievements, but why would he be? As many have noted, [Bush] was told he was good enough for [Harvard Business School] despite undistinguished grades at [Yale]; he was told he was good enough for [Texas Governor] despite a mediocre record in [business]; he was told he was good enough to be president despite no record at all [as Texas Governor]. All his life, every step of the way, [Bush] was told he was good enough for the next step, in spite of ample evidence to the contrary. What could this breed if not the sort of empty narcissism on display every time [Bush] speaks?

” How, they will wonder, did a man so devoid of professional accomplishment beguile so many into thinking he could manage the world’s largest economy, direct the world’s most powerful military, execute the world’s most consequential job?”

That sounds more like a description of our last president, “W”.

In fact, the entire premise that Obama wasn’t held to a higher standard can more easily to GW Bush: a mediocre college student who skipped out on his National Guard committment, ran a few failed businesses and eventually became president. Why? because he had a rich and powerful father.

The surest signs you don’t have an argument:
1. Compare someone who is not Hitler or a member of Hitlers Nazi party to Hitler or Nazis.
2. Bring up someone else’s mom as a pejorative.
3. Call someone a fanboy. Or worse fanboi.

“Andy Hertzfeld, the software wizard who wrote a lot of the original operating system for Apple’s Mac, took the company to task yesterday for quietly releasing — as in not mentioning it onstage at the Worldwide Developers Conference yesterday — a meager update to the Mac Pro desktop, “Apple’s top of the line, expandable Macintosh, aimed at users who need lots of computing power and disk storage, like programmers or other professionals. ”
See the link below.
Nobody cares what the fatman does.

My advice is to read Pogue and Chris Breen’s translations rather than pay attention to an instant gratification shift fit by this Big Fat Idiot who’s grown accustomed to popping his pills and stuffing his face, vomiting words of bile without regard for consequences. To Thine Own Self Be True. Disregard this extremely negative and destructive force- deep down, you all know he’s Toxic. Corporations aren’t the Dark Side. People are.

Do you ever listen to Rush? That’s who you’re describing. Your use of the word “typical” indicates your own far-sightedness and narrow agenda. “Typical lib?” “Typical Rush-hater?” No, I don’t tolerate bigotry, sexism, homophobia, and racism. I don’t “tolerate” Rush Limbaugh. I don’t tolerate his politics. I know too much about him- I don’t bother desperately seeking for redeeming characteristics. I’ve given up. I accept differences and agree to disagree- but there’s a line I can no longer cross. You yourself illustrate my point. I give my honest opinion of this despicable person, and you spit in my face. And so it goes. I therefore have become permanently nauseated by our public discourse and by what I believe is my own natural cynicism. It’s ugly out there, isn’t it? Go ahead- blame me. Blame Obama. What else ya got? Polly want a cracker?….

What I believe he meant is that ad hominem attacks, such as you made on Limbaugh under the false guise of “honest opinion,” are typical of those who substitute hatred for understanding, and rhetoric for discussion.

You are welcome to your own opinion about Limbaugh. However, your writings here, especially as contrasted with Limbaugh’s writings, lead to the inescapable conclusion that you are the one who is despicable.

In Rush’s world, he doesn’t need a Mac Pro but wants more power (which should come as no surprise). He’s too stupid to set up an 8TB RAID array in the Mac Pro he’s already got, so he’s bitching to Apple that he should have Thunderbolt so he can do lightning-fast backups. The guy is clearly a tech newbie.

In the real world, the Mac Pro is already more capable than almost any machine offered at the same price — you’d have to spend serious corporate cash to do better. eSATA, RAID, and fiber optic connections are options for the current machines that would accomplish everything Rush wants and more. But in his signature blowhard style, Rush chooses to whine. In contrast, sane & reasonable people take Tim Cook at his word that new hardware is on the way.

It’s up to you to choose who to listen — i choose Cook, not some entertainer with clearly demonstrated lack of technical knowledge.

I do listen to him almost everyday.
And I hear the sound bites that CNN etc play of rush… And they are NOT the same.

People like media matters blatantly take rush out of context (or blatantly Mia quote him..) and then call it fact.
And then you regurgitate it as well.

I urge everyone to sit down for one week/month and listen to rush live. And I will bet you that what you hear.. Isn’t what you’ve been told about him.
Half of the crap the left bashes him on… Is his humor. Something the left just don’t understand..

Rush quotes a liberal, and then gets blamed for saying it. It’s funny to hear the left go nuts sometimes.

Magic negro song anyone? Lol
(read the lyrics, it’s quoting the la times and al sharpton, and Biden… Rush didn’t make any of it up, but he gets blamed for shanklins song)

Anything that deviates from the party line is attacked. Watch Obama the empty suit. He does it all the time. He only has Chicago Lib thuggery to go with his raging sense of entitlement for doing nothing of merit in his life.

Rush is an entertainer who does political commentary. You probably enjoy certain forms of entertainment that I would find offensive or objectionable.

The difference is that I don’t have the hubris to tell you what forms of entertainment you should enjoy, bit to “seek therapy”.

People who disagree with me politically far outnumber the people who agree and I’m okay with that. What bothers me is when people get all Borg on me and tell me if I don’t agree with them that there is something wrong with me. There’s nothing wrong with me or my opinion or Rush, or Obama. We all agree on some things and disagree on others.

Deal with it. And stop trying to reshape the entire world to your personal point of view.

On the face of it there’s some truth to his statement about Rush’s weight, and he did have a problem with pills. The idiot part is just an opinion.

The problem here is that everyone has problems and skeletons, myself included. I doubt you have a perfect life and same goes for auramac and everyone else on here. The problem is this sort of gross rude and uncivil attitude costs us something if we tolerate it.

Sort of like living next to a man who screams at and beats his wife and children, and doing. Outgoing about it. Or watching an old man being beaten and carjacked and pretending nothing is happening because it’s not happening to you.

Society and humanity as a whole is only as good as we make it. I’m okay with people who disagree with me on politics, and religion, and movies, and art. I’m okay with that, but I’m not okay with people actively being rude.

I have a friend who is struggling mightily with an addiction to prescription pain medicine. It’s not a laughing matter. No one should make fun of it any more than you’d make fun of someone’s child who had down syndrome.

Rush makes himself read all of that crap, and then goes on the air for 3 hours a day, 15 hours a week to comment on articles he’s read. And, he does that while trying to make it entertaining and informative to the listener.

I simply don’t understand how he does it while maintaining his sanity. Perhaps he just laughs it off. Some people drink to deal with thier pain. Maybe part of the reason he got hooked on pain-pills was because of his constant ingestion of Main-stream media bias.

what are you? You don’t like the guy don’t listen to him. You are no example of a human being I’d respect based on what you’ve posted here. There’s plenty of things I do not like about Obama and I don’t want him to be president but I would never say the things about him that you have posted on here about Rush.

Learn to have some respect for people you disagree with and then maybe you’ll have a leg to stand on.

First off his name is Rush, not “Rush”. Second I got no issue with people not liking or agreeing with the man. He sets himself out there for criticism by sharing his political view openly every day. What I have a problem with is the lack of decency.

I don’t like Obamas presidency and I strongly object to many of his policies and actions. I won’t be voting for him. That said you will never see me calling him an idiot or making fun of him physically or his race. I respect the man and wish him and his family well. I just want a different president.

Why can’t people who don’t like Rush or Bush or whoever just show some class? Is it really that hard? Does being a liberal require you to hate conservatives and be jerks to them? When did this become mandatory?

A lot of other Mac Pro users are verging on grabbing torches and pitchforks because the Mac Pro hasn’t gotten any love the past two years, and now that it does, it’s a measely processor bump?? Seriously? I mean, come on…

I understand that Apple’s consumer & pro-sumer devices are Apple’s bread & butter, but perhaps Apple just doesn’t see that much ‘upgrading’ for Mac Pro users; i.e.: a longer upgrade cycle for those ‘Pro’ units as opposed to consumer units.

Perhaps Apple has just decided to go with a longer refresh cycle on the Pro.